RC 
351 
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Please 

handle  this  volume 

with  care. 

rhe  University  of  Connecticut 
Libraries,  Storrs 


iliiiii 


3    9153    00004697    1 


si 

VI) 
LI 


Wear  and  Tear, 

HINTS    FOR    THE    OVERWORKED. 


BY 

S^WEIR   MITCHELL,  M.D., 

MEMBER  OF  THE  NATIONAL  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES,  ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 
1871. 


Muj^:^ 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  &  CO., 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


WEAR  AND  TEAR, 


OR 


HINTS     FOR    THE     OVERWORKED. 


SOME  two  years  ago  I  found  occasion  to  set 
before  the  readers  of  Lippincott'' s  Magazine 
certain  thoughts  concerning  work  in  America,  and 
its  results.  Somewhat  to  my  surprise  the  article 
attracted  more  notice  than  usually  falls  to  the 
share  of  such  papers,  and  since-  then,  from  numer- 
ous sources,  I  have  had  the  pleasure  to  learn  that 
my  words  of  warning  have  been  of  good  ser- 
vice to  many  thoughtless  sinners  against  the  laws 
of  labor  and  of  rest.  I  have  found,  also,  that  the 
views  then  set  forth  as  to  the  peculiar  difficulties 
of  mental  and  physical  work  in  this  country  are  in 
strict  accordance  with  the  personal  experience  of 

(3) 


4  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

foreign  scholars  who  have  cast  their  lots  among  us ; 
while  some  of  our  best  teachers  have  thanked  me 
for  stating,  from  a  doctor's  standpoint,  the  evils 
which  their  own  experience  had  taught  them  to 
see  in  our  present  mode  of  tasking  the  brains  of 
the  younger  generation  of  girls. 

I  hope,  therefore,  that  I  am  justified  in  the  belief 
that  in  its  new  and  larger  form  my  little  tract  may 
again  claim  attention  from  such  as  need  its  lessons. 
Since  it  was  meant  only  for  these,  I  need  not  ex- 
cuse myself  to  physicians  for  its  simplicity ;  while  I 
trust  that  certain  of  my  brethren  may  find  in  it 
enough  of  original  thought  to  justify  its  reappear- 
ance, as  its  statistics  were  taken  from  manuscript 
notes  and  have  been  printed  in  no  scientific  jour- 
nal. 

I  have  called  these  Hints  Wear  and  Tear,  be- 
cause this  title  clearly  and  briefly  points  out  my 
meaning.  Wear  is  a  natural  and  legitimate  result 
of  lawful  use,  and  is  what  we  all  have  to  put  up 
with  as  the  result  of  years  of  activity  of  brain  and 
body.  Tear  is  another  matter :  it  comes  of  hard 
or  evil  usage  of  body  or  engine,  of  putting  things 
to  wrong  purposes,  using  a  chisel  for  a  screwdriver, 


OR   HINTS  FOR    THE    OVERWORKED.     5 

a  penknife  for  a  gimlet.  Long  strain,  or  the  sud- 
den demand  of  strength  from  weakness,  causes 
tear.     Wear  comes  of  use  ;  tear  of  abuse. 

The  sermon  of  which  these  words  are  the  text 
has  been  preached  many  times  in  many  ways  to 
congregations  for  whom  the  Dollar  Devil  had  al- 
ways a  more  winning  eloquence.  Like  many 
another  man  who  has  talked  wearily  to  his  fellows 
with  an  honest  sense  of  what  they  truly  need,  I 
feel  how  vain  it  is  to  hope  for  many  earnest  lis- 
teners. Yet  here  and  there  may  be  men  and 
women,  ignorantly  sinning  against  the  laws  by 
which  they  should  live  or  should  guide  the  lives 
of  others,  who  will  perhaps  be  willing  to  heed 
what  one  unbiased  thinker  has  to  say  in  regard  to 
the  dangers  of  the  way  they  are  treading  with  so 
little  knowledge  as  to  where  it  is  leading. 

The  man  who  lives  an  outdoor  life — who  sleeps 
with  the  stars  visible  above  him — who  wins  his 
bodily  subsistence  at  first-hand  from  the  earth 
and  waters — is  a  being  who  defies  rain  and  sun, 
has  a  strange  sense  of  elastic  strength,  may 
drink  if  he  likes,  and  may  smoke  all  day  long, 
and    feel    none    the   worse    for   it.     Some  such 


6  JVEAI?  AND    TEAR, 

return  to  the  earth  for  the  means  of  life  is  what 
gives  vigor  and  developing  power  to  the  colon- 
ists of  an  older  race  cast  on  a  land  like  ours. 
A  few  generations  of  men  living  in  such  fashion 
store  up  a  capital  of  vitality  which  accounts 
largely  for  the  prodigal  activity  displayed  by 
their  descendants,  and  made  possible  only  by  the 
sturdy  contest  with  Nature  which  their  ances- 
tors have  waged.  That  such  a  life  is  still  led  by 
multitudes  of  our  countrymen  is  what  alone  serves 
to  keep  up  our  pristine  force  and  energy.  Are  we 
not  merely  using  the  interest  on  these  accumulations 
of  power,  but  also  wastefuUy  spending  the  capital  ? 
From  a  few  we  have  grown  to  millions,  and  al- 
ready in  a  multitude  of  ways  the  people  of  the 
Atlantic  coast  present  the  peculiarities  of  an  old 
nation.  Have  we  lived  too  fast?  The  settlers 
here,  as  elsewhere,  had  ample  room,  and  lived 
sturdily  by  their  own  hands,  little  troubled  for  the 
most  part  with  those  intense  competitions  which 
make  it  hard  to  live  nowadays  and  embitter  the 
daily  bread  of  life.  Neither  had  they  the  thou- 
sand intricate  problems  to  solve  which  perplex 
those  who  straggle  to-day  in  our  teeming  city  hives. 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.        7 

Above  all,  educational  wants  were  limited  in  kind 
and  in  degree,  and  the  physical  man  and  woman 
were  what  the  growing  state  most  needed. 

How  much  and  what  kind  of  good  came  of 
the  gradual  change  in  all  these  matters  we  well 
enough  know.  That  in  one  and  another  way  the 
cruel  competition  for  the  dollar,  the  new  and  ex- 
acting habits  of  business,  the  racing  speed  which 
the  telegraph  and  railway  have  introduced  into 
commercial  life,  the  new  value  which  great  for- 
tunes have  come  to  possess  as  means  towards  social 
advancement,  and  the  overeducation  and  over- 
straining of  our  young  people,  have  brought  about 
some  great  and  growing  evils,  is  what  is  now  be- 
ginning to  be  distinctly  felt.  I  should  like,  there- 
fore, at  the  risk  of  being  tedious,  to  re-examine 
this  question — to  see  if  it  be  true  that  the  nervous 
system  of  certain  classes  of  Americans  is  being 
sorely  overtaxed — and  to  ascertain  how  much  our 
habits,  our  modes  of  work,  and,  haply,  climatic 
peculiarities,  may  have  to  do  with  this  state  of 
things.  But  before  venturing  anew  upon  a  sub- 
ject which  may  possibly  excite  controversy  and 
indignant    comment,   let    me  premise    that  I  am 


8  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

talking  chiefly  of  the  crowded  portions  of  our 
country — of  our  Atlantic  States — of  our  great 
towns,  and  especially  of  their  upper  classes,  and 
am  dealing  with  those  higher  questions  of  mental 
hygiene  of  which  in  general  we  hear  but  too  little. 
If  the  strictures  I  have  to  make  applied  throughout 
the  land — to  Oregon  as  to  New  England,  to  the 
farmer  as  to  the  business  man,  to  the  v/omen  of 
the  artisan  class  as  to  those  socially  above  them — 
then  indeed  I  should  cry,  God  help  us  and  those 
that  are  to  come  after  us  !  Owing  to  causes  which 
are  obvious  enough,  the  physical  worker  is  being 
better  and  better  paid  and  less  and  less  hardly 
tasked,  while  just  the  reverse  obtains  in  increasing 
ratios  for  those  who  live  by  the  lower  form  of 
brain-work ;  so  that  the  bribe  to  use  the  hand  is 
growing  daily,  and  pure  mechanical  labor,  as  op- 
posed to  that  of  the  clerk,  is  being  ''  leveled  up- 
ward" with  a  fortunate  celerity. 

Before  attempting  to  indicate  certain  ways  in 
which  we  as  a  people  are  overtaxing  and  mis- 
using the  organs  of  thought,  I  should  be  glad  to 
have  the  privilege  of  explaining  the  terms  which 
it  is  necessary  to  use,  and  of  pointing  out  some  of 


OR  HliYTS  FOR    THE   OVERWORKED.        9 

the  conditions  under  which  mental  labor  is  per- 
formed. 

The  human  body  carries  on  several  kinds  of 
manufacture,  two  of  which — the  evolution  of  mus- 
cular force  or  motion,  and  intellection  with  all 
moral  activities — alone  concern  us  here.  We  are 
somewhat  apt  to  antagonize  these  two  sets  of  func- 
tions, and  to  look  upon  the  latter,  or  brain-labor, 
as  alone  involving  the  use  or  abuse  of  the  nervous 
system.  But  every  blow  on  the  anvil  is  as  dis- 
tinctly an  act  of  the  nerve  centres  as  are  the  high- 
est mental  processes.  If  this  be  so,  how  or  why 
is  it  that  excessive  muscular  exertion — I  mean  such 
as  is  violent  and  continued^does  not  cause  the 
same  appalling  effects  as  may  be  occasioned  by  a 
like  abuse  of  the  nerve  organs  in  mental  actions 
of  various  kinds?  This  is  not  an  invariable  rule, 
for,  as  I  may  point  out  in  the  way  of  illustration 
hereafter,  the  centres  which  originate  or  evolve 
muscular  power  do  sometimes  suffer  from  undue 
taxation ;  but  it  is  certainly  true  that  when  this 
happens,  the  evil  result  is  rarely  as  severe  or  as 
lasting  as  when  it  is  the  organs  of  mental  power 
that  have  suffered. 


10  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

In  either  form  of  work,  physical  or  mental,  the 
will  acts  to  start  the  needed  processes,  and  after- 
ward is  chiefly  regulative.  In  the  case  of  bodily 
labor,  the  spinal  nerve  centres  are  most  largely 
called  into  action.  Where  mental  or  moral  pro- 
cesses are  involved,  ,the  active  organs  lie  within 
the  cranium.  As  I  said  just  now,  when  we  talk 
of  an  overtaxed  nervous  system  it  is  usually  the 
brain  we  refer  to,  and  not  the  spine;  and  the 
question  therefore  arises,  Why  is  it  that  an  excess 
of  physical  labor  is  better  borne  than  a  like  excess 
of  mental  labor?  The  simple  answer  is,  that 
mental  overwork  is  harder,  because  as  a  rule  it 
is  closet  or  counting-room  or  at  least'  indoor 
work  —  sedentary,  in  a  word.  The  man  who 
is  intensely  using  his  brain  is  not  collaterally 
employing  any  other  organs,  and  the  more  in- 
tense his  application  the  less  locomotive  does  he 
become.  On  the  other  hand,  however  a  man 
abuses  his  powers  of  motion  in  the  way  of  work, 
he  is  at  all  events  encouraging  that  collateral  func- 
tional activity  which  mental  labor  discourages:  he 
is  quickening  the  heart,  driving  the  blood  through 
unused   channels,    hastening    the   breathing  and 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED,     n 

increasing  the  secretions  of  the  skin — all  excel- 
lent results,  and,  even  if  excessive,  better  than  a 
too  incomplete  use  of  these  functions. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  in  the  question. 
We  do  not  know  as  yet  what  is  the  cost  in  ex- 
pended material  of  mental  acts  as  compared  with 
motor  manifestations,  and  here,  therefore,  are  at 
fault  \  because,  although  it  seems  so  much  slighter 
a  thing  to  think  a  little  than  to  hit  out  with  the 
power  of  a  Heenan,  it  may  prove  that  the  expendi- 
ture of  nerve  material  is  in  the  former  case  greater 
than  in  the  latter. 

When  a  man  uses  his  muscles,  after  a  time  comes 
the  feeling  called  fatigue — a  sensation  always  re- 
ferred to  the  muscles,  and  due  most  probably  to 
the  deposit  in  the  tissues  of  certain  substances 
formed  during  motor  activity.  Warned  by  this 
weariness,  the  man  takes  rest — may  indeed  be 
forced  to  do  so;  but,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  he 
who  is  intensely  using  the  brain  does  not  feel  in 
the  common  use  of  it  any  sensation  referable  to 
the  organ  itself  which  warns  him  that  he  has  taxed 
it  enough.  It  is  apt,  like  a  well-bred  creature,  to 
get  into  a  sort  of  exalted  state  under  the  stimulus 


12  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

of  need,  so  that  its  owner  feels  amazed  at  the  ease 
of  its  processes  and  at  the  sense  of  wide-awake- 
fulness  and  power  that  accompanies  them.  It  is 
only  after  very  long  misuse  that  the  brain  begins 
to  have  means  of  saying,  *'  I  have  done  enough ;" 
and  at  this  stage  the  warning  comes  too  often 
in  the  shape  of  some  one  of  the  many  symptoms 
which  indicate  that  the  organ  is  already  talking 
with  the  tongue  of  disease. 

I  do  not  know  how  these  views  will  be  generally 
received,  but  I  am  sure  that  the  personal  expe- 
rience of  many  scholars  will  decide  them  to  be 
correct ;  and  they  serve  to  make  clear  why  it  is 
that  men  may  not  know  they  are  abusing  the  organ 
of  thought  until  it  is  already  suffering  deeply,  and 
also  wherefore  the  mind  may  not  be  as  ruthlessly 
overworked  as  the  legs  or  arms. 

Whenever  I  have  closely  questioned  patients  or 
men  of  studious  habits  as  to  this  matter,  I  have 
found  that  most  of  them,  when  in  health,  recog- 
nized no  such  thing  as  fatigue  in  mental  action, 
or  else  I  learned  that  what  they  took  for  this  was 
merely  that  physical  sense  of  being  tired,  which 
arises  from  prolonged  writing  or  constrained  posi- 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.      13 


tions.  The  more,  I  fancy,  any  healthy  student 
reflects  on  this  matter  the  more  clearly  will  he 
recognize  this  fact,  that  very  often  when  his  brain 
is  at  its  clearest,  he  pauses  only  because  his  back 
is  weary,  his  eyes  aching,  or  his  fingers  tired. 

This  most  important  question,  as  to  how  a  man 
shall  know  when  he  has  sufficiently  tasked  his 
brain,  demands  a  longer  answer  than  I  can  give  it 
here ;  and,  unfortunately,  there  is  no  popular  book 
since  Ray's  clever  and  useful  Mental  Hygiene,  and 
Feuchtersleben's  Dietetics  of  the  Soul,  both  out 
of  print,  which  deals  in  a  readable  fashion  with 
this  or  kindred  topics.  Many  men  are  warned 
by  some  sense  of  want  of  clearness  or  ease  in  their 
intellectual  processes.  Others  are  checked  by  a 
feeling  of  surfeit  or  disgust,  which  they  obey  or 
not  as  they  are  wise  or  unwise.  Here,  for  ex- 
ample, is  in  substance  the  evidence  of  a  very  at- 
tentive student  of  his  own  mental  mechanism, 
whom  we  have  to  thank  for  many  charming  pro- 
ducts of  his  brain.  Like  most  scholars,  he  can 
scarcely  say  that  he  ever  has  a  sense  of  ^'brain- 
tire,"  because  cold  hands  and  feet  and  a  certain 
restlessness  of  the  muscular  system  drive  him  to 


14  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

take  exercise.  Especially  when  working  at  night,  he 
gets  after  a  time  a  sense  of  disgust  at  the  work  he 
is  doing.  "Bat  sometimes,"  he  adds,  "my  brain 
gets  going,  and  is  to  be  stopped  by  none  of  the 
common  plans  of  counting,  repeating  French 
verbs,  or  the  like."  A  well-known  poet  describes 
to  me  the  curioiis  condition  of  excitement  into 
which  his  brain  is  cast  by  the  act  of  composing 
verse,  and  thinks  that  the  happy  accomplishment 
of  his  task  is  followed  by  a  feeling  of  relief,  which 
shows  that  there  has  been  high  tension. 

One  of  our  ablest  medical  scholars  reports  him- 
self to  me  as  having  never  been  aware  of  any 
sensation  in  the  head,  by  which  he  could  tell 
that  he  had  worked  enough,  up  to  a  late  period 
of  his  college  career,  when,  having  overtaxed  his 
brain,  he  was  restricted  by  his  advisers  to  two  or 
three  hours  of  daily  study.  He  thus  learned  to 
study  hard,  and  ever  since  has  been  accustomed 
to  execute  all  mental  tasks  at  high  pressure  under 
intense  strain  and  among  the  cares  of  a  great  prac- 
tice. All  his  mind-work  is,  however,  forced  labor, 
and  it  always  results  in  a  distinct  sense  of  cerebral 
fatigue, — a  feeling  of  pressure,  which  is  eased  by 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.     15 

clasping  his  hands  over  his  head ;  and  also  there  is 
desire  to  lie  down  and  rest. 

*'I  am  not  aware,"  writes  a  physician  of  dis- 
tinction, "that,  until  a  few  years  ago,  I  ever  felt 
any  sense  of  fatigue  from  brain-work  which  I  could 
refer  to  the  organ  employed.  The  longer  I  worked 
the  clearer  and  easier  my  mental  processes  seemed 
to  be,  until,  during  a  time  of  great  sorrow  and 
anxiety,  I  pushed  my  thinking  organs  rather  too 
hard.  As  a  result,  I  began  to  have  headache  after 
every  period  of  intellectual  exertion.  Then  I  lost 
power  to  sleep.  Although  I  have  partially  re- 
covered, I  am  now  always  warned  when  I  have 
done  enough,  by  lessening  ease  in  my  work,  and 
by  a  sense  of  fullness  and  tension  in  the  head." 
The  indications  of  brain-tire,  therefore,  differ  in 
different  people,  and  are  more  and  more  apt  to  be 
referred  to  the  thinking  organ  as  it  departs  more 
and  more  from  a  condition  of  health.  Surely  a 
fuller  record  of  the  conditions  under  which  men 
of  note  are  using  their  mental  machinery  would 
be  every  way  worthy  of  attention. 

Another  reason  why  too  prolonged  use  of  the 
brain  is  so  mischievous  is  seen  in  a  peculiarity. 


l6  WEAR   AND    TEAR, 

which  is  of  itself  a  proof  of  the  auto-activity  of 
the  vital  acts  of  the  various  organs  concerned  in 
intellection.  We  sternly  concentrate  attention 
on  our  task,  whatever  it  be ;  we  do  this  too  long, 
or  under  circumstances  which  make  labor  difficult, 
such  as  during  digestion  or  when  weighted  by 
anxiety.  At  last  we  stop  and  propose  to  find  rest 
in  bed.  Not  so,  says  the  ill-used  brain,  now  mor- 
bidly wide  awake  ;  and  whether  we  will  or  not,  the 
mind  keeps  turning  over  and  over  the  work  of 
the  day,  the  business  or  legal  problem,  or  mum- 
bling, so  to  speak,  some  wearisome  question  in  a 
fashion  made  useless  by  the  denial  of  full  atten- 
tion. Or  else  the  imagination  soars  away  with 
the  unrestful  energy  of  a  demon,  conjuring  up 
an  endless  procession  of  broken  images  and 
disconnected  thoughts,  so  that  sleep  is  utterly 
banished. 

I  have  chosen  here  as  examples  men  whose 
brains  are  engaged  constantly  in  the  higher  forms 
of  mental  labor;  but  the  difficulty  of  arresting 
at  will  the  overtasked  brain  belongs  more  or  less 
to  every  man  who  overuses  this  organ,  and  is  the 
well-known  initial  symptom  of  numerous  morbid 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE    OVERWORKED. 


17 


States.  I  have  instanced  scholars  and  men  of 
science  chiefly,  because  they,  more  than  others,  are 
apt  to  study  the  conditions  under  which  their 
thinking  organs  prosper  or  falter  in  their  work, 
and  because  from  them  have  we  had  the  clearest 
accounts  of  this  embarrassing  condition  of  auto- 
matic activity  of  the  cerebral  organs.  Few 
thinkers  have  failed,  I  fancy,  to  suffer  in  this  way 
at  some  time,  and  with  many  the  annoyance  is 
only  too  common.  I  do  not  think  the  subject  has 
received  the  attention  it  deserves,  even  from  such 
thorough  believers  in  unconscious  cerebration  as 
Maudsley.  As  this  state  of  brain  is  fatal  to  sleep, 
and  therefore  to  needful  repose  of  brain,  every 
sufferer  has  a  remedy  which  he  finds  more  or  less 
available.  This  usually  consists  in  some  form 
of  effort  to  throw  the  thoughts  off  the  track  upon 
which  they  are  moving.  I  cannot  do  better  than 
refer  the  reader  for  fuller  information  on  this 
subject  to  Dr.  Wm.  A.  Hammond's  admirable 
little  book  on  Sleep  and  its  Derangements,  in 
which  the  whole  matter  is  fully  discussed.  Almost 
every  literary  biography  has  some  instance  of 
this  difficulty,  and  some  hint  as  to  the  sufferer's 


1 8  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

method  of  freeing  his  brain  from  the  despotism  of 
a  ruling  idea  or  a  chain  of  thought. 

Many  years  ago  I  heard  Mr.  Thackeray  say. 
that  he  was  sometimes  haunted,  when  his  work 
was  over,  by  the  creatures  he  himself  had  sum- 
moned into  being,  and  that  it  was  a  good  cor- 
rective to  turn  over  the  pages  of  a  dictionary. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  is  said  to  have  been  troubled  in 
a  similar  way.  A  great  lawyer,  whom  I  questioned 
lately  as  to  this  matter,  told  me  that  his  cure  was 
a  chapter  or  two  of  a  novel,  with  a  cold  bath  be- 
fore going  to  bed;  for,  said  he,  quaintly,  "You 
never  take  out  of  a  cold  bath  the  thoughts  you 
take  into  it."  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  such 
examples. 

Looking  broadly  at  the  question  of  the  influ- 
ence of  excessive  and  prolonged  use  of  the  brain 
upon  the  health  of  the  nervous  system,  we  learn, 
first,  that  cases  of  cerebral  exhaustion  in  people 
who  live  wisely  are  rare.  Eat  regularly  and  exer- 
cise freely,  and  there  is  scarce  a  limit  to  the  work 
you  may  get  out  of  the  thinking  organs.  But  if 
into  the  life  of  a  man  whose  powers  are  fully  taxed 
we  bi'ing  the  elements  of  great  anxiety  or  worry, 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.     19 

the  whole  machinery  begins  at  once  to  work,  as  it 
were,  with  a  dangerous  amount  of  friction.  Add 
to  this  constant  fatigue  of  body,  such  as  some 
forms  of  business  bring  about,  and  you  have 
all  the  means  needed  to  ruin  the  man's  power 
of  useful  labor. 

I  have  been  careful  here  to  state  that  combined 
overwork  of  mind  and  body  is  doubly  mischievous, 
because  nothing  is  now  more  sure  in  hygienic 
science  than  that  a  proper  alternation  of  physical 
and  mental  labor  is  best  fitted  to  insure  a  lifetime  of 
wholesome  and  vigorous  intellectual  exertion.  This 
is  probably  due  to  several  causes,  but  principally  to 
the  fact  that  during  active  exertion  of  the  body 
the  brain  cannot  be  employed  intensely,  and  there- 
fore has  secured  to  it  a  state  of  repose  which  even 
sleep  is  not  alwayr>  competent  to  supply.  There 
is  a  Turkish  proverb  which  occurs  to  me  liere,  like 
most  proverbs,  n.ore  or  less  true:  ''Dreaming 
goes  afoot,  but  v.ho  can  think  on  horseback?" 
Perhaps,  too,  there  is  concerned  a  physiological 
law,  which,  though  somewhat  mysterious,  I  may 
again  have  to  summon  to  my  aid  in  the  way  of 
explanation.      It  is  known  as  the  law  of  Trevi- 


20  WEAR   AND    TEAR, 

ranus,  its  discoverer,  and  may  thus  be  briefl}r 
stated :  Each  organ  is  to  every  other  as  an 
excreting  organ.  In  other  words,  to  insure  per- 
fect health,  every  tissue,  bone,  nerve,  tendon,  or 
muscle  should  take  from  the  blood  certain  ma- 
terials and  return  to  it  certain  others.  To  do  this 
every  organ  must  or  ought  to  have  its  period  of 
activity  and  of  rest,  so  as  to  keep  the  vital  fluid  in 
a  proper  state  to  nourish  every  other  part.  This 
process  in  perfect  health  is  a  system  of  mutual 
assurance,  and  is  probably  essential  to  a  condition 
of  entire  vigor  of  both  mind  and  body. 

It  has  long  been  believed  that  maladies  of  the 
nervous  system  are  increasing  rapidly  in  the  more 
crowded  portions  of  the  United  States ;  but  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  one  has  studied  the  death- 
records  to  make  sure  of  the  accuracy  of  this  opin- 
ion. There  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  the 
palsy  of  children  becomes  more  frequent  in  cities 
just  in  proportion  to  their  growth  in  population. 
I  mention  it  here,  because  as  it  is  a  disease  which 
does  not  kill  but  only  cripples,  it  has  no  place 
in  the  mortuary  tables.  Neuralgia  is  another 
malady  which  has  no  record  there,  but  is,  I  sus- 


OR  HINTS  FOR    THE   OVER  WO   KED.     21 

pect,  increasing  at  a  rapid  rate  wherever  our 
people  are  crowded  together  in  towns.  Perhaps 
no  other  form  of  sickness  is  so  sure  an  indication 
of  the  development  of  the  nervous  temperament, 
or  that  condition  in  which  there  are  both  fee- 
bleness and  irritability  of  the  nervous  system. 
But  the  most  unquestionable  proof  of  the  increase 
of  nervous  disease  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  death 
statistics  of  cities. 

There,  if  anywhere,  we  shall  find  evidence  of 
the  fact,  because  there  we  find  in  exaggerated 
shapes  all  the  evils  I  have  been  defining.  The  best 
mode  of  testing  the  matter  is  to  take  the  statistics 
of  some  large  city  which  has  grown  from  a  country 
town  to  a  vast  business  hive  within  a  very  few 
years.  Chicago  fulfills  these  conditions  precisely. 
In  1852  it  numbered  49,407  souls.  At  the  close 
of  1868  it  had  reached  to  252,054.  Within  these 
years  it  has  become  the  keenest  and  most  wide- 
awake business  centre  in  America.  I  owe  to  the 
kindness  of  Dr.  J.  H.  Ranch,  Sanitary  Superin- 
tendent of  Chicago,  manuscript  records,  hitherto 
unpublished,  of  its  deaths  from  nervous  disease,  as 
well  as  the  statement  of  each  year's  total  mor- 


22  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

tality ;  so  that  I  have  it  in  my  power  to  show  the 
increase  of  deaths  from  nerve  disorders  relatively 
to  the  annual  loss  of  life  from  all  causes.  I  possess 
similar  details  as  to  Philadelphia,  which  seem  to 
admit  of  the  same  conclusions  as  those  drawn  from 
the  figures  I  have  used.  But  here  the  evil  has  in- 
creased more  slowly.  Let  us  see  what  story  these 
figures  will  tell  us  for  the  Western  city.  Unluckily, 
they  are  rather  dry  tale-tellers. 

The  honest  use  of  the  mortuary  statistics  of  a 
great  town  is  no  easy  matter,  and  I  must  therefore 
ask  that  I  may  be  supposed  to  have  taken  every 
possible  precaution  in  order  not  to  exaggerate  the 
reality  of  a  great  evil.  Certain  diseases,  such  as 
apoplexy,  palsy,  epilepsy,  St.  Vitus's  dance,  and 
lockjaw  or  tetanus,  we  all  agree  to  consider  as 
nervous  maladies :  convulsions,  and  the  vast  num- 
ber of  cases  known  in  the  death-lists  as  dropsy  of 
the  brain,  effusion  on  the  brain,  etc.,  are  to  be 
looked  upon  with  more  doubt.  The  former,  as 
every  doctor  knows,  are,  in  a  vast  proportion  of 
instances,  due  to  direct  disease  of  the  nerve  cen- 
tres ;  or,  if  not  to  this,  then  to  such  a  condition 
of  irritability  of  these  parts  as  makes  them  too 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


23 


ready  to  originate  spasms  in  response  to  causes 
which  disturb  the  extremities  of  the  nerves,  such 
as  teething  and  the  like.  This  tendency  seems  to 
be  fostered  by  the  air  and  habits  of  great  towns, 
and  by  all  of  the  agencies  which  in  these  places 
depress  the  health  of  a  community.  The  other 
class  of  diseases,  as  dropsy  of  the  brain  or  effusion, 
probably  includes  a  number  of  maladies,  due 
some  of  them  to  scrofula,  and  to  the  predis- 
posing causes  of  that  disease ;  others,  to  the  kind 
of  influences  which  seem  to  favor  convulsive  dis- 
orders. Less  surely  than  the  former  class  can 
these  be  looked  upon  as  true  nervous  diseases  ',  so 
that  in  speaking  of  them  I  am  careful  to  make 
separate  mention  of  their  increase,  while  thinking 
it  right  on  the  whole  to  include  in  the  general 
summary  of  this  growth  of  nerve  disorders  this 
partially  doubtful  class. 

Taking  the  years  1852  to  1868,  inclusive,  it 
will  be  found  that  the  population  of  Chicago  has 
increased  5"i  times  and  the  deaths  from  all  causes 
3'7  times;  while  the  nerve  deaths,  including  the 
doubtful  class  labeled  in  the  reports  as  dropsy 
of  the  brain  and  convulsions,  have  risen  to  20*4 


24 


WEAR  AND    TEAR, 


times  what  they  were  in  1852.  Thus  in  1852, 
'53,  and  '55,  leaving  out  the  cholera  year  '54,  the 
deaths  from  nerve  disorders  were  respectively  to 
the  whole  population  as  i  in  1149,  i  in  953,  and 
I  in  941 ;  whilst  in  1866,  '67,  and  ^6d>,  they  were 
I  in  505,  I  in  415*7,  and  i  in  287"8.  Still  omit- 
ting 1854,  the  average  proportion  of  neural  deaths 
to  the  total  mortality  was,  in  the  five  years  be- 
ginning with  1852,  I  in  26*1.  In  the  five  latter 
years  studied — that  is,  from  1864  to  1868,  inclu- 
sive— the  proportion  was  i  nerve  death  to  every 
9 '9  of  all  deaths. 

I  have  alluded  above  to  a  class  of  deaths  in- 
cluded in  my  tables,  but  containing,  no  doubt, 
instances  of  mortality  due  to  other  causes  than 
disease  of  the  nerve  organs.  Thus  many  which 
are  stated  to  have  been  owing  to  convulsions 
ought  to  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  tubercular  dis- 
ease of  the  brain  or  to  heart  maladies ;  but  even 
in  the  practice  of  medicine  the  distinction  as  to 
cause  cannot  always  be  made ;  and  as  a  large  pro- 
portion of  this  loss  of  life  is  really  owing  to  brain 
affections,  I  have  thought  best  to  include  the  whole 
class  in  my  statement. 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVER  WORKED. 


25 


A  glance  at  the  individual  diseases  which  are 
indubitably  nervous  is  more  instructive  and  less 
perplexing.  For  example,  taking  the  extreme 
years,  the  recent  increase  in  apoplexy  is  remark- 
able, even  when  we  remember  that  it  is  a  malady 
of  middle  and  later  life,  and  that  Chicago,  a  new 
city,  is  therefore  entitled  to  a  yearly  increasing 
quantity  of  this  form  of  death.  In  1868  the 
number  was  d>-6  times  greater  than  in  1852.  Con- 
vulsions as  a  death  cause  had  in  1868  risen  to  22 
times  as  many  as  in  the  year  1852.'  Epilepsy, 
one  of  the  most  marked  of  all  nervous  maladies, 
is  more  free  from  the  difficulties  which  belong  to 
the  last-mentioned  class.  In  1852  and  '53  there 
were  but  two  deaths  from  this  disease;  in  the 
next  four  years  there  were  none.  From  1858 
to  '64,  inclusive,  there  were  in  all  6  epileptic 
deaths :  then  we  have  in  the  following  years,  5, 
3,  II ;  and  in  1868  the  number  had  increased  to 
17.  Passing  over  palsy,  which,  like  apoplexy, 
increases  in  1868 — ^'6  times  as  compared  with 
1852,  and  26  times  as  compared  with  the  four 
years  following  1852 — we  come  to  lockjaw,  an 
unmistakable  nerve  malady.     Six  years  out  of  the 


26  J^F£A7^  AND    TEAR, 

first  eleven  give  us  no  death  from  this  painful  (dis- 
ease:  the  others,  up  to  1864,  offer  each  one  only, 
and  the  last-mentioned  year  has  but  two.  Then 
the  number  rises  to  3  each  year,  to  5  in  1867,  and 
to  12  in  1868.  At  first  sight,  this  record  of  mor- 
tality from  lockjaw  would  seem  to  be  conclusive, 
yet  it  is  perhaps,  of  all  the  maladies  mentioned, 
the  most  deceptive  as  a  means  of  determining 
the  growth  of  neural  diseases.  To  make  this 
clear  to  the  general  reader,  he  need  only  be  told 
that  tetanus  is  nearly  always  caused  by  mechanical 
injuries,  and  that  the  natural  increase  of  these  in 
a  place  like  Chicago  may  account  for  a-  large  part 
of  the  increase.  Yet,  taking  the  record  as  a 
whole,  and  viewing  it  only  with  a  calm  desire  to 
get  at  the  truth,  it  is  not  possible  to  avoid  see- 
ing that  the  growth  of  nerve  maladies  has  been 
inordinate. 

The  situation  of  Chicago  would  alone  make  it 
deadly,  were  it  not  for  the  sagacity  and  enter- 
prise of  its  present  health  officers  and  its  bountiful 
supply  of  pure  water.  The  industry  and  energy 
which  have  built  this  great  city  on  a  morass,  and 
made  it  a  vast  centre  of  insatiate  commerce,  are 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.      27 


now  at  work  to  undermine  the  nervous  systems 
of  its  restless  and  eager  people.  With  what  re- 
sult, I  have  here  tried  to  point  out,  chiefly  because 
it  is  an  illustration  in  the  most  concentrated  form 
of  causes  which  are  at  work  throughout  the  entire 
land. 

The  facts  I  have  given  establish  the  dispropor- 
tionate increase  in  one  great  city  of  those  diseases 
which  are  largely  produced  by  the  strain  on  the 
nervous  system  resulting  from  the  toils  and  com- 
petitions of  a  community  growing  -rapidly  and 
stimulated  to  its  utmost  capacity.  Probably  the 
same  rule  would  be  found  to  apply  to  other  large 
towns,  but  I  have  not  had  time  to  study  the 
statistics  of  any  of  them  fully:  and  for  reasons 
already  given,  Chicago  may  be  taken  as  a  typical 
illustration. 

If  I  have  made  myself  understood,  we  are  now 
prepared  to  apply  some  of  our  knowledge  to 
the  solution  of  certain  awkward  questions  which 
force  themselves  daily  upon  the  attention  of  every 
thoughtful  and  observant  physician,  and  have  thus 
opened  a  way  to  the  discussion  of  the  causes 
which,  as  I  believe,  are  deeply  affecting  the  mental 


28  WEAR  AND    TEAR. 

and  physical  health  of  working  Americans.  Some 
of  these  are  due  to  the  climatic  conditions  under 
which  all  work  must  be  done  in  this  country, 
some  are  outgrowths  of  our  modes  of  labor,  and 
some  go  back  to  social  habitudes  and  methods 
of  education. 

In  studying  this  subject,  it  will  not  answer  to 
look  only  at  the  causes  of  sickness  and  weakness 
which  affect  the  male  sex.  If  the  mothers  of  a 
people  are  sickly  and  weak,  the  sad  inheritance 
falls  upon  their  offspring,  and  this  is  why  I  must 
deal  first,  however  briefly,  with  the  health  of  our 
girls,  because  it  is  here,  as  the  doctor  well  knows, 
that  the  trouble  begins.  Ask  any  physician  of  your 
acquaintance  to  sum  up  thoughtfully  the  young 
girls  he  knows,  and  to  tell  you  how  many  in  each 
score  are  fit  to  be  healthy  wives  and  mothers,  or 
in  fact  to  be  wives  and  mothers  at  all.  I  have 
been  asked  this  question  myself  very  often,  and  I 
have  heard  it  asked  of  others.  The  answers  I  am 
not  going  to  give,  chiefly  because  I  should  not  be 
believed — a  disagreeable  position,  in  which  I  shall 
not  deliberately  place  myself.  Perhaps  I  ought  to 
add  that  the  replies  I  have  heard  given  by  others 
were  appalling. 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.     29 

Next,  I  ask  you  to  note  carefully  the  expression 
and  figures  of  the  young  girls  whom  you  may 
chance  to  meet  in  your  walks,  or  whom  you  may 
observe  at  a  concert  or  in  the  ball-room.  You  will 
see  many  very  charming  faces,  the  like  of  which 
the  world  cannot  match — figures  somewhat  too 
spare  of  flesh,  and,  especially  south  of  Rhode 
Island,  a  marvelous  littleness  of  hand  and  foot. 
But  look  further,  and  especially  among  New 
England  young  girls :  you  will  be  struck  with  a 
certain  hardness  of  line  in  form  and  feature  which 
should  not  be  seen  between  thirteen  and  eighteen, 
at  least ;  and  if  you  have  an  eye  which  rejoices  in 
the  tints  of  health,  you  will  miss  them  on  a  multi- 
tude of  the  cheeks  we  are  now  so  daringly  criti- 
cising. I  do  not  want  to  do  more  than  is  needed 
of  this  ungracious  talk :  suffice  it  to  say  that  multi- 
tudes of  our  young  girls  are  merely  pretty  to  look 
at,  or  not  that — that  their  destiny  is  the  shawl  and 
the  sofa,  neuralgia,  weak  backs,  and  the  varied 
forms  of  hysteria — that  domestic  demon  which  has 
produced  untold  discomfort  in  many  a  household, 
and,  I  am  almost  ready  to  say,  as  much  unhap- 
piness  as  the  husband's  dram.     My  phrase  may 


30  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

seem  outrageously  strong,  but  only  the  doctor 
knows  what  one  of  these  self-made  invalids  can  do 
to  make  a  household  wretched.  Mrs.  Gradgrind 
is,  in  fiction,  the  only  successful  portrait  of  this 
type  of  misery,  of  the  woman  who  wears  out  and 
destroys  generations  of  nursing  relatives,  and  who, 
as  Wendell  Holmes  has  said,  is  like  a  vampire, 
sucking  slowly  the  blood  of  every  healthy,  helpful 
creature  within  reach  of  her  demands. 

If  any  reader  doubts  my  statement  as  to  the  phys- 
ical failure  of  our  city-bred  women  to  fulfill  all 
the  natural  functions  of  mothers,  let  him  contrast 
the  power  of  the  recently  imported  Irish  or  Ger- 
mans to  nurse  their  babies  a  full  term  or  longer, 
with  that  of  the  native  women  even  of  our  mechanic 
classes.  It  is  difficult  to  get  at  full  statistics  as  to 
those  of  a  higher  social  degree,  but  I  suspect  that 
not  over  one-half  are  competent  to  nurse  their 
children  a  full  year  without  themselves  suffering 
gravely.  I  ought  to  add  that  our  women,  unlike 
ladies  abroad,  are  usually  anxious  to  nurse  their 
own  children,  and  merely  cannot.  The  numerous 
artificial  infant  foods  now  for  sale  singularly  prove 
the  truth  of  this  latter  statement.     Many  physi- 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


31 


cians,  with  whom  I  have  talked  of  this  matter,  be- 
lieve that  I  do  not  overstate  the  evil;  others  think 
that  two- thirds  may  be  fomid  reliable  as  nurses; 
while  the  rural  doctors,  who  have  replied  to  my 
queries,  state  that  only  from  one-tenth  to  three- 
tenths  of  farmers'  wives  are  unequal  to  this  na- 
tural demand.  There  is  indeed  little  doubt  that 
the  mass  of  our  women  possess  that  peculiar  nerv- 
ous organization  which  is  associated  with  great 
excitability,  and,  unfortunately,  with  less  physical 
vigor  than  is  to  be  found,  for  example,  in  the  sturdy 
English  dames  at  whom  Hawthorne  sneered  so 
bitterly.  And  what  are  the  causes  to  which  these 
peculiarities  are  to  be  laid  ?  There  are  many  who 
will  say  that  late  hours,  styles  of  dress,  prolonged 
dancing,  etc.  are  to  be  blamed ;  while  really,  with 
rare  exception,  the  newer  fashions  have  been  more 
healthy  than  those  they  superseded,  people  are  bet- 
ter clad  and  better  warmed  than  ever,  and,  save  in 
rare  cases,  late  hours  and  overexertion  in  the  dance 
are  utterly  inca;)able  of  alone  explaining  the  mis- 
chief. I  am  f.ir  more  inclined  to  believe  that 
climatic  peculiarities  have  formed  the  groundwork 
of  the  evil,  and  enabled  every  injurious  agency  to 


32  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

produce  an  effect  which  would  not  in  some  other 
countries  be  so  severe.  I  am  quite  persuaded, 
indeed,  that  the  development  of  a  nervous  tem- 
perament, with  lessened  power  of  endurance,  is 
one  of  the  many  race-changes  which  are  also 
giving  us  facial,  vocal,  and  other  peculiarities  de- 
rived from  none  of  our  ancestral  stocks.  If,  as  I 
believe,  this  change  of  temperament  in  a  people 
coming  largely  from  the  phlegmatic  races  is  to  be 
seen  most  remarkably  in  the  more  nervous  sex,  it 
will  not  surprise  us  that  it  should  be  fostered  by 
many  causes  which  are  fully  within  our  own  con- 
trol. Given  such  a  tendency,  disease  will  find  in 
it  a  ready  prey,  want  of  exercise  will  fatally  in- 
crease it,  and  all  the  follies  of  fashion  will  aid  in 
the  work  of  ruin. 

While  a  part  of  the  mischief  lies  with  climatic 
conditions  which  are  utterly  mysterious,  the  ob- 
stacles to  physical  exercise,  arising  from  extremes 
of  temperature,  constitute  at  least  one  obvious 
cause  of  ill  health  among  women  in  our  country. 
The  great  heat  of  summer,  and  the  slush  and  ice 
of  winter,  interfere  with  women  who  wish  to  take 
exercise,   but  whose  arrangements   to  go  out-of- 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


33 


doors  involve  wonderful  changes  of  dress  and  an 
amount  of  preparation  appalling  to  the  masculine 
creature. 

Worst  of  all,  however,  to  my  mind — most  de- 
structive in  every  way — is  the  American  view  of 
female  education.  The  time  taken  for  the  more 
serious  instruction  of  girls  extends  to  the  age  of 
eighteen,  and  rarely  over  this.  During  these 
years  they  are  undergoing  such  organic  develop- 
ment as  renders  them  remarkably  sensitive.  At 
seventeen  I  presume  that  healthy  girls-  are  nearly 
as  well  able  to  study,  with  proper  precautions,  as 
men ;  but  before  this  time  over-use,  or  even  a  very 
steady  use,  of  the  brain  is  dangerous  to  health  and 
to  every  probability  of  future  w^omanly  usefulness. 

In  most  of  our  schools  the  hours  are  too  many, 
for  both  girls  and  boys.  From  a  quarter  of  nine  or 
nine  until  half-past  two  is,  with  us,  the  common 
school-time  in  private  seminaries.  The  usual 
recess  is  twenty  minutes  or  half  an  hour,  and  it 
is  not  filled  by  enforced  exercise.  In  certain 
schools — would  it  were  the  rule  ! — ten  minutes 
recess  is  given  after  every  hour;  and  in  the 
Blind    Asylum   this   time    is   taken   up    by   light 


34 


WEAR  AND    TEAR, 


gymnastics,  wliich  are  obligatory.  To  these 
hours  we  must  add  the  time  spent  in  study  out 
of  school.  This,  for  some  reason,  nearly  always 
exceeds  the  time  stated  by  teachers  to  be  neces- 
sary ;  and  most  girls  between  the  ages  of  thirteen 
and  seventeen  thus  expend  two  or  three  hours. 
Does  any  physician  believe  that  it  is  good  for  a 
growing  girl  to  be  so  occupied  seven  or  eight 
hours  a  day  ?  or  that  it  is  right  for  her  to  use 
her  brains  as  long  a  time  as  the  mechanic  em- 
ploys his  muscles  ?  But  this  is  only  a  part  of  the 
evil.  The  multiplicity  of  studies,  the  number  of 
teachers, — each  eager  to  get  the  most  he  can  out 
of  his  pupil, — the  severer  drill  of  our  day,  and 
the  greater  intensity  of  application  demanded, 
produce  effects  on  the  growing  brain  which,  in  a 
vast  number  of  cases,  can  be  only  disastrous. 

Even  in  girls  of  from  fourteen  to  eighteen, 
such  as  crowd  the  Normal  School  in  Philadel- 
phia, this  sort  of  tension  and  this  variety  of  study 
occasion  an  amount  of  ill  health  which  is  sadly 
familiar  to  many  physicians.  The  girls  may 
themselves  have  no  easy  escape,  as  they  are  in 
training  to  teach  for  a  living ;  but  surely  it  were 


OR  HINTS  FOR   rilE   OVERWORKED.      35 

possible  and  reasonable  to  lessen  the  useless  load 
they  have  now  to  carr3^  Not  to  be  unfair,  let  us 
take  Section  A,  the  highest  class.  It  has  eighteen 
branches  and  twenty-two  studies  every  week,  and 
once  in  two  weeks  Composition  is  added,  making 
twenty-three  in  all,  and  this  is  what  the  scholars 
learn :  Local  Geography,  Physical  Geography, 
Grammar,  Rhetoric,  Arithmetic,  Algebra,  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  Elocution,  Ety- 
mology, Ancient  History,  Modern  History,  Pen- 
manship, Drawing,  Mensuration,  Geometry,  Phi- 
losophy, Chemistry,  Theory  and  Practice  of 
Teaching.  The  last  three  are  taught  by  lectures. 
There  are  five  recitations  a  day,  but  only  about 
three  daily  studies  requiring  home  preparation  ; 
which,  says  the  Controllers'  Report,  ought  not  to 
occupy  more  than  two  hours,*  but,  in  a  vast 
number  of  instances,  do  really  demand  very 
much  more  than  this.  Supposing  no  outside 
work  to  be  needed  for  the  lectures,  we  have 
still  eighteen  branches  to  be  worked  at  in  five 
days.     The   sole    relief  to  this    sad   catalogue  is 

*  Report  of  Controllers,  1868. 


36  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

the  statement  that  the  pupils  are  trained  in  Phy- 
sical Exercises. 

In  private  schools  the  same  kind  of  thing  goes 
on,  with  the  addition  of  foreign  languages,  and 
under  the  dull  spur  of  discipline,  without  the  aid 
of  any  such  necessities  as  stimulate  the  pupils  of 
what  we  are  pleased  to  call  a  normal  (!)  school. 

In  New  England,  where  the  forcing  system  is  at 
its  wicked  worst  for  both  sexes,  the  evil  is  begin- 
ning to  attract  attention,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Boys' 
Latin  School  at  Boston,  which  has  no  Saturday 
holiday,  and  seems  to  be  admirably  arranged  to  de- 
stroy health.  In  the  Controllers'  Report,  whence 
I  cull  my  facts  as  to  the  Normal  School  of  Phila- 
delphia, *  there  is  quoted  from  a  New  England 
report  a  significant  passage  —  whether  it  applies 
to  girls  or  boys  we  do  not  learn.  The  health 
of  school  children,  say  the  Controllers,  in  their 
report,  dated  1869,  has  attracted  the  attention 
of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Education,  and 
their  last  report  contains  important  statistics  as 
to  the  exhausting  effects  of  over-exertion  of  the 
brain  :  '*  In  one  school  of  eighty-five  pupils,  only 
fifty-four  had  refreshing  sleep ;  fifty-nine  had  head- 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.     37 

aches  or  constant  weariness,  and  only  fifteen 
were  perfectly  well."  They  next  tell  us  that 
the  best  medical  opinions  state  that  men  should 
not  use  the  brain  daily  more  than  six  hours,  nor 
children  more  than  three:  ''But  in  the  above 
school  thirty-one  studied  three  and  one-half  hours, 
thirty-five  studied  four  hours,  and  twelve  from  four 
to  seven  hours,  /;/  addition  to  the  six  hours  of 
school.' '  The  report  adds  that,  "  in  places  where 
scholars  are  highest  in  reputation,  the  above  ex- 
ample is  the  common  experience."    - 

In  a  somewhat  discursive  fashion  I  have  pointed 
out  the  mischief  which  is  pressing  to-day  upon  our 
girls  of  every  class  in  life.  The  doctor  knows  how 
often  and  how  earnestly  he  is  called  upon  to  re- 
monstrate against  this  growing  evil.  He  is,  of 
course,  well  enough  aware  that  many  sturdy  girls 
stand  the  strain,  but  he  knows  also  that  very 
many  do  not — and  that  the  brain,  sick  with  mul- 
tiplied studies  never  thoroughly  mastered,  plods 
on,  doing  poor  work,  until  somebody  wonders 
what  is  the  matter  with  that  girl;  and  so  she 
scrambles  through,  or  else  breaks  down  with 
weak  eyes,   headaches,    neuralgias,   or  what   not. 


38  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

I  am  perfectly  confident  that  I  shall  be  told 
here  that  girls  ought  to  be  able  to  study  hard 
between  fourteen  and  eighteen  years  without 
injury,  if  boys  can  do  it.  Practically,  however, 
the  boys  of  to-day  are  getting  their  toughest  edu- 
cation later  and  later  in  life,  while  girls  leave 
school  at  the  same  age  as  they  did  thirty  years 
ago.  It  used  to  be  common  for  bo}%  to  enter 
college  at  fourteen :  at  present,  eighteen  is  a  usual 
age  of  admission  at  Harvard  or  Yale.  Now,  let 
any  one  compare  the  scale  of  studies  for  both 
sexes  employed  half  a  century  ago  with  that  of  to- 
day. He  will  find  that  its  demands  are  vastly 
more  exacting  than  they  were — a  difference  fraught 
with  no  evil  for  men,  who  attack  the  graver  studies 
later  in  life,  but  most  perilous  for  girls,  who  are 
still  expected  to  leave  school  at  eighteen  or 
earlier.* 

I  firmly  believe — and  I  am  not  alone  in  this 
opinion — that  as  concerns  the  physical  future  of 
women  they  would  do  far  better  if  the  brain  were 


■;•:-  Witness  Richardson's  heroine,  who  was  "  perfect  mistress 
of  the  four  rules  of  arithmetic !" 


OR  HINTS  FOR    THE   OVERWORKED.     39 

very  lightly  tasked  and  the  school-hours  but  three 
or  four  a  day  until  they  reach  the  age  of  seventeen 
at  least.  Anything,  indeed,  were  better  than  loss 
of  health  ;  and  if  it  be  in  any  case  a  question  of 
doubt,  the  school  should  be  unhesitatingly  aban- 
doned or  its  hours  lessened,  as  the  source  of  very 
many  of  the  nervous  maladies  with  which  our 
women  are  troubled.  I  am  almost  ashamed  to 
defend  a  position  which  is  held  by  many  compe- 
tent physicians,  but  an  intelligent  friend,  who  has 
read  this  page,  still  asks  me  why  it  is  that  over- 
work of  brain  should  be  so  serious  an  evil  to 
women  at  the  age  of  womanly  development.  My 
best  reply  would  be  the  experience  and  opinions 
of  those  of  us  who  are  called  upon  to  see  how 
many  school-girls  are  suffering  in  health  from  con- 
finement, want  of  exercise  at  the  time  of  day  when 
they  most  incline  to  it,  bad  ventilation,"^  and  too 

*  In  the  city  where  this  is  written  there  is,  so  far  as  I  know, 
not  one  private  girls'  school  in  a  building  planned  for  a  school- 
house.  As  a  consequence,  we  hear  endless  complaints  from 
young  ladies  of  overheated  or  chilly  rooms.  If  the  teacher  be 
old,  the  room  is  kept  too  warm  ;  or  if  she  be  young,  and  much 
afoot  about  her  school,  the  apartment  is  apt  to  be  cold. 


40  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

steady  occupation  of  mind.  At  no  other  time  of 
life  is  the  nervous  system  so  sensitive — so  irritable, 
I  might  say — and  at  no  other  are  abundant  fresh 
air  and  exercise  so  all-important.  To  show  more 
precisely  how  the  growing  girl  is  injured  by  the 
causes  just  mentioned  would  carry  me  upon  sub- 
jects unfit  for  full  discussion  in  these  pages,  but 
no  thoughtful  reader  can  be  much  at  a  loss  as  to 
my  meaning. 

These,  then,  are  a  few  of  the  reasons  why  it 
were  better  not  to  educate  girls  at  all  between  the 
ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen,  unless  it  can  be 
done  with  careful  reference  to  their  bodily  health. 
To-day,  the  American  woman  is,  to  speak  plainly, 
physically  unfit  for  her  duties  as  woman,  and  is 
perhaps  of  all  civilized  females  the  least  qualified 
to  undertake  those  weightier  tasks  which  tax  so 
heavily  the  nervous  system  of  man.  She  is  not 
fairly  up  to  what  nature  asks  from  her  as  wife 
and  mother.  How  will  she  sustain  herself  under 
the  pressure  of  those  yet  more  exacting  duties 
which  nowadays  she  is  eager  to  share  with  the 
man? 

While  making  these  stringent  criticisms,  I  am 


OR  HINTS  FOR    THE   OVERWORKED. 


41 


anxious  not  to  be  misunderstood.  The  point 
which  above  all  others  I  wish  to  make  is  this, 
that  owing  chiefly  to  peculiarities  of  climate,  our 
growing  girls  are  endowed  with  organizations 
so  highly  sensitive  and  impressionable  that  we 
expose  them  to  needless  dangers  when  we -attempt 
to  overtax  them  mentally.  In  any  country  the 
effects  of  such  a  course  must  be  evil,  but  in 
America,  I  believe  it  to  be  most  disastrous. 

As  I  have  summoned  up  climate  in  the  broad 
sense  to  account  for  some  peculiarities  of  the 
health  of  our  women,  so  also  would  I  admit  it  ac 
one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  work  among  men 
results  so  frequently  in  tear  as  well  as  wear.  I 
believe  that  something  in  our  country  makes 
intellectual  work  of  all  kinds  harder  to  do  than  it 
is  in  Europe ;  and  since  we  do  it  with  a  terrible 
energy,  the  result  shows  in  wear  very  soon,  and 
almost  always  in  the  way  of  tear  also.  Perhaps 
few  persons  who  look  for  evidence  of  this  fact  at 
our  national  career  alone  will  be  willing  to  admit 
my  proposition,  but  among  the  higher  intellectual 
workers,  such  as  astronomers,  physicists  and 
naturalists,  I    have    frequently   heard    this    belief 


42  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

expressed,  and  by  none  so  positively  as  those 
who  have  lived  on  both  continents.  Since  this 
paper  was  first  written  I  have  been  at  some  pains 
to  learn  directly  from  Europeans  who  have  come 
to  reside  in  America  how  this  question  has  been 
answered  by  their  experience.  For  obvious 
reasons,  I  do  not  name  my  witnesses,  who  are 
numerous ;  but,  although  they  vary  somewhat  in 
the  proportion  of  the  effects  which  they  ascribe 
to  climate  and  to  such  domestic  peculiarities  as 
the  overheating  of  our  houses,  they  are  at  one 
as  regards  the  simple  fact  that,  for  some  reason, 
mental  work  is  more  exhausting  here  than  in 
Europe;  while,  as  a  rule,  such  Americans  as 
have  worked  abroad  are  well  aware  that  in  France 
and  in  England  intellectual  labor  is  less  trying 
than  it  is  with  us.  A  great  physiologist,  well 
known  among  us,  long  ago  expressed  to  me  the 
same  opinion ;  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  living 
naturalists,  who  is  honored  alike  on  both  conti- 
nents, is  positive  that  brain-work  is  harder  and 
more  hurtful  here  than  abroad  —  an  opinion 
which  is  shared  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and 
other    competent  observers.      Certain    it    is   that 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


43 


our  thinkers  of  the  classes  named  are  apt  to  break 
down  with  what  the  doctor  knows  as  cerebral 
exhaustion, — a  condition  in  which  the  mental 
organs  become  more  or  less  completely  inca- 
pacitated for  labor, — and  that  this  state  of  things 
is  very  much  less  common  among  the  'savans 
of  Europe.  A  share  in  the  production  of  this 
evil  may  perhaps  be  due  to  certain  general  habits 
of  life  which  fall  with  equal  weight  of  mischief 
upon  many  classes  of  busy  men,  as  I  shall  pres- 
ently point  out.  Still,  these  will  not  altogether 
account  for  the  fact,  nor  is  it  to  my  mind  quite 
fully  explained  by  any  of  the  more  obvious  faults 
in  our  climate,  nor  yet  by  our  habits  of  life,  such 
as  furnace-warmed  houses,  hasty  meals,  bad  cook- 
ings, or  neglect  of  exercise.  Let  a  man  live  as  he 
may,  I  believe  he  will  still  discover  that  mental 
labor  is  with  us  more  exhausting  than  we  could 
wish  it  to  be.  Why  this  is  I  cannot  say,  but  it  is 
not  more  mysterious  than  the  fact  that  agents 
which,  as  sedatives  or  excitants,  affect  the  great 
nerve  centres,  do  this  very  differently  in  different 
climates.  There  is  some  evidence  to  show  that 
this  is  also  the  case  with  narcotics ;  and  perhaps  a 


44  WEAR  AAW    TEAR, 

partial  explanation  may  be  found  in  the  manner 
in  which  the  excretions  are  controlled  by  external 
temperatures,  as  well  as  by  the  fact  which  Dr. 
Brown-Sequard  discovered,  and  which  I  have  fre- 
quently corroborated,  that  many  poisons  are  re- 
tarded in  their  action  by  placing  the  animal 
affected  in  a  warm  atmosphere. 

It  is  possible  to  drink  with  safety  in  England 
quantities  of  wine  which  here  would  be  disagreeable 
in  their  first  effect  and  perilous  in  their  ultimate 
results.  The  Cuban  who  takes  coffee  enormously 
at  home,  and  smokes  endlessly,  can  do  here  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  to  the  same  degree.  And 
so  also  the  amount  of  excitation  from  work  which 
the  brain  will  bear  varies  exceedingly  with  varia- 
tions of  climatic  influences. 

We  are  all  of  us  familiar  with  the  fact  that  phy- 
sical work  is  more  or  less  exhausting  in  different 
climates,  and  as  I  am  dealing,  or  about  to  deal, 
with  the  work  of  business  men,  which  involves 
a  certain  share  of  corporeal  exertion,  as  well  as 
with  that  of  mere  scholars,  I  must  ask  leave  to 
digress,  in  order  to  show  that  in  this  part  of  the 
country  at  least  the  work  of  the  body  probably 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


45 


occasions  more  strain  than  in  Europe,  and  is  fol- 
lowed by  greater  sense  of  fatigue. 

The  question  is  certainly  a  large  one,  and  should 
include  a  consideration  of  matters  connected  with 
food  and  stimulants,  on  which  I  can  but  touch.  I 
have  carefully  questioned  a  number  of  master 
mechanics  who  employ  both  foreigners  and  native 
Americans,  and  I  am  assured  that  the  British  work- 
man finds  labor  more  trying  here  than  at  home ; 
while,  perhaps,  the  eight-hour  movement  may  be 
looked  upon  as  an  instinctive  expression  of  the 
main  fact  as  regards  our  working  class  in  general. 

A  distinguished  English  scholar  informs  me 
that  since  he  has  resided  among  us  the  same  com- 
plaints, as  to  tlie  depressing  effects  of  physical 
labor  in  America,  have  come  to  him  from  skilled 
English  mechanics.  What  share  change  of  diet 
and  the  like  may  have  in  the  matter,  I  have  not 
space  to  discuss.* 

-  The  new  emigrant  suffers  in  a  high  degree  from  the  same 
evils  as  to  cookery  which  affect  only  less  severely  the  mass  of  our 
people,  and  this,  no  doubt,  helps  to  enfeeble  him.  The  fiying- 
pan  has,  I  fear,  a  better  right  to  be  called  our  national  emblem 
than  the  eagle,  and  I  grieve  to  say  it  reigns  supreme  west  of  the 


46  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

Although,  from  what  I  have  seen,  I  should  judge 
that  overtasked  men  of  science  are  especially  liable 
to  the  trouble  which  I  have  called  cerebral  ex- 
haustion, all  classes  of  men  who  use  the  brain 
severely,  and  who  have  also — and  this  is  important 
— seasons  of  excessive  anxiety  or  of  grave  respon- 
sibility, are  subject  to  the  same  form  of  disease ; 
and  this  is  why,  I  presume,  that  I,  as  well  as 
others  who  are  accustomed  to  encounter  nervous 
disorders,  have  met  with  numerous  instances  of 
nervous  exhaustion  among  merchants  and  manu- 
facturers. The  lawyer  and  clergyman  offer  ex- 
amples, but  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have 
seen  a  bad  case  among  physicians.  Dismissing 
the  easy  jest  which  the  latter  statement  will  surely 
suggest,  the  reason  for  this  we  may  presently 
encounter. 

My  note-books  seem  to  show  that  manufacturers 
and  certain  classes  of  railway  officials  are  the  most 
liable  to  suffer  from  neural  exhaustion.     Next  to 


Alleghanies.  T  well  remember  that  a  party  of  friends  about  to 
camp  out  were  unable  to  buy  a  gridiron  in  two  Western  towns, 
each  numberinsr  over  four  thousand  eaters  of  fried  meats. 


OR  IIINrS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


47 


these  come  merchants  in  general,  brokers,  etc.; 
then  less  frequently  clergymen  \  still  less  often 
lawyers;  and  more  rarely  doctors;  while  distress- 
ing cases  are  apt  to  occur  among  the  over-schooled 
young  of  both  sexes. 

The  worst  instances  to  be  met  with  are  among 
young  men  suddenly  cast  into  business  positions 
involving  weighty  responsibility.  I  can  recall 
several  cases  of  men  under  or  just  over  twenty-one 
who  have  lost  health  while  attempting  to  carry  the 
responsibilities  of  great  manufactories^  Excited 
and  stimulated  by  the  pride  of  such  a  charge,  they 
have  worked  with  a  certain  exaltation  of  brain, 
and,  achieving  success,  have  been  stricken  down 
in  the  moment  of  triumph.  This  too  frequent 
practice  of  immature  men  going  into  business, 
especially  with  borrowed  capital,  is  a  serious  evil. 
The  same  person,  gradually  trained  to  naturally 
and  slowly  increasing  burdens,  would  have  been 
sure  of  healthy  success.  In  individual  cases  I  have 
found  it  so  often  vain  to  remonstrate  or  to  point 
out  the  various  habits  which  collectively  act  for 
mischief  on  our  business  class  that  I  may  well 
<lespair  of  doing  good  by  a  mere  general  state- 


48  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

ment.  As  I  have  noted  them,  connected  with 
cases  of  overwork,  they  are  these :  Late  hours 
of  work,  irregular  meal.3  bolted  in  haste  away 
from  home,  the  want  of  holidays  and  of  pursuits 
outside  of  business,  and  the  consequent  practice 
of  carrying  home,  as  the  only  subject  of  talk,  the 
cares  and  successes  of  the  cou::ti:~^- house  and  the 
stock -board.  Most  of  these  evil  habits  require 
no  comment.  What  indeed  can  be  said .?  The 
man  who  has  worked  hard  all  day,  and  lunched 
or  dined  hastily,  comes  home  or  goes  to  the  club 
to  converse — save  the  mark  ! — about  goods  and 
stocks.  Holidays,  except  in  summer,  he  knows 
not,  and  it  is  then  thought  time  enough  taken 
from  work  if  the  man  sleeps  in  the  country  and 
comes  into  a  hot  city  daily,  or  at  the  best  has  a 
week  or  two  at  the  seashore.  This  incessant 
monotony  tells  in  the  end.  Men  have  confessed 
to  me  that  for  twenty  years  they  had  worked 
every  day,  often  traveling  at  night  or  on  Sundays 
to  save  time ;  and  that  in  all  this  period  they  had 
not  taken  one  day  for  play.  These  are  extreme 
instances,  but  they  are  also  in  a  measure  repre- 
sentative of  a  frightfully  general  social  evil. 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED.     49 

Is  it  any  wonder  if  asylums  for  the  insane  gape 
for  such  men  ?  There  comes  to  them  at  last  a 
season  of  business  embarrassment ;  or,  when  they 
get  to  be  fifty  or  thereabouts,  the  brain  begins 
to  feel  the  strain,  and  just  as  they  are  thinking, 
"Now  we  will  stop  and  enjoy  ourselves,"  the 
brain,  which,  slave-like,  never  murmurs  until  it 
breaks  out  into  open  insurrection,  suddenly  re- 
fuses to  work,  and  the  mischief  is  done.  There 
are  therefore  two  periods  of  existence  especially 
prone  to  those  troubles — one  when-  the  mind  is 
maturing ;  another  at  the  turning-point  of  life, 
when  the  brain  has  attained  its  fullest  power,  and 
has  left  behind  it  accomplished  the  larger  part  of 
its  best  enterprise  and  most  active  labor. 

I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the  variety  of  work 
done  by  lawyers,  their  long  summer  holiday,  their 
more  general  cultivation,  their  usual  tastes  for 
literary  or  other  objects  out  of  their  business  walks, 
may,  to  some  extent,  save  them,  as  well  as  the  fact 
that  they  can  rarely  be  subject  to  the  sudden  and 
fearful  responsibilities  of  business  men.  Moreover, 
like  the  doctor,  the  lawyer  gets  his  weight  upon 
him  slowly,  and  is  thirty  at  least  before  it  can  be 
4 


50 


WEAR  AND    TEAR, 


heavy  enough  to  task  him  severely.  The  business 
man's  only  limitation  is  need  of  money,  and  few- 
young  mercantile  men  will  hesitate  to  enter  trade 
on  their  own  account  if  they  can  command  capital. 
With  the  doctor,  as  with  the  lawyer,  a  long  in- 
tellectual education,  a  slowly-increasing  strain, 
and  responsibilities  of  gradual  growth  tend,  with 
his  outdoor  life,  to  save  him  from  the  form  of  dis- 
ease I  have  been  alluding  to.  This  element  of 
open-air  life,  I  suspect,  has  a  large  share  in  pro- 
tecting men  who  in  many  respects  lead  a  most 
unhealthy  existence.  The  doctor,  who  is  sup- 
^posed  to  get  a  large  share  of  exercise,  in  reality 
gets  very  little  after  he  grows  too  busy  to  walk, 
and  has  then  only  the  incidental  exposure  to  out- 
of-door  air.  When  this  is  associated  with  a  fair 
share  of  physical  exertion,  it  is  an  immense  safe- 
guard against  the  ills  of  anxiety  and  too  much 
brain-work.  I  presume  that  very  few  of  our  gen- 
erals could  have  gone  through  with  their  terrible 
task  if  it  had  not  been  that  they  lived  in  the  open 
air  and  exercised  freely.  For  these  reasons  I  do 
not  doubt  that  the  effects  of  our  great  contest 
were  far  more  severely  felt  by  the  Secretary  of 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


51 


War  and  the  late  President,  than  by  Grant  or 
Sherman. 

The  wearing,  incessant  cares  of  overwork,  of 
business  anxiety,  and  the  like,  produce  directly 
diseases  of  the  nervous  system,  and  are  also  the 
fertile  parents  of  dyspepsia,  consumption,  and  mal- 
adies of  the  heart.  How  often  we  can  trace  all 
the  forms  of  the  first-named  protean  disease  to  such 
causes  is  only  too  well  known  to  every  physician, 
and  their  connection  with  cardiac  troubles  is  also 
well  understood.  Happily,  functional  troubles  of 
heart  or  stomach  are  far  from  unfrequent  pre- 
cursors of  the  graver  mischief  which  finally  falls 
upon  the  nerve  centres,  if  the  lighter  warnings 
have  been  neglected ;  and  for  this  reason  no  man 
who  has  to  use  his  brain  energetically  and  for 
long  periods,  can  afford  to  disregard  the  hints 
which  he  gets  from  attacks  of  palpitation  of  heart 
or  from  a  disordered  stomach.  In  many  instances 
these  are  the  only  expressions  of  the  fact  that  he  is 
abusing  the  machinery  of  mind  or  body ;  and  the 
sufferer  may  think  himself  fortunate  that  this  is 
the  case,  since  even  the  least  serious  degrees  of 
direct  exhaustion  of  the  centres  with  which  he 


52  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

feels  and  thinks  are  more  grave  and  are  less  open 
to  ready  relief. 

When  affections  of  the  outlying  organs  are 
neglected,  and  even  in  many  cases  where  these 
have  not  suffered  at  all,  we  are  apt  to  witness,  as  a 
result  of  too  prolonged  anxiety  combined  with 
business  cares,  or  even  of  mere  overwork  alone, 
with  want  of  proper  physical  habits  as  to  exercise, 
amusement,  and  diet,  that  form  of  disorder  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken  as  cerebral  exhaus- 
tion ;  and  before  closing  this  paper  I  am  tempted 
to  describe  briefly  the  symptoms  which  warn  of 
its  approach  or  tell  of  its  complete  possession  of 
the  unhappy  victim.  Why  it  should  be  so  difificult 
of  relief  is  hard  to  comprehend,  until  we  remember 
that  the  brain  is  apt  to  go  on  doing  its  weary  work 
automatically  and  despite  the  will  of  the  unlucky 
owner ;  so  that  it  gets  no  thorough  rest,  and  is  in 
the  hapless  position  of  a  broken  limb  which  is 
expected  to  knit  while  still  in  use.  Where  physi- 
cal overwork  has  worn  out  the  spinal  or  motor 
centres,  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  easy  to  enforce 
repose,  and  so  to  place  them  in  the  best  condition 
for  repair.     This  was  often  and  happily  illustrated 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


53 


during  the  war.  Severe  marches,  bad  food,  and 
other  causes  which  make  war  exhausting,  were 
constantly  in  action,  until  certain  men  were  doing 
their  work  with  too  small  a  margin  of  reserve- 
power.  Then  came  such  a  crisis  as  the  last  days 
of  McClellan's  retreat  to  the  James  River,  or  the 
forced  march  of  the  Sixth  Army  Corps  to  Gettys- 
burg, and  at  once  these  men  succumbed  with 
palsy  of  the  legs.  A  few  months  of  absolute  rest, 
good  diet,  ale,  fresh  beef  and  vegetables  restored 
them  anew  to  perfect  health. 

In  all  probability  incessant  use  of  a  part  flushes 
with  blood  the  nerve  centres  which  furnish  it 
with  motor  energy,  so  that  excessive  work  may 
bring  about  a  state  of  congestion,  owing  to  which 
the  nerve  centre  becomes  badly  nourished,  and  at 
last  strikes  work.  In  civil  life  we  sometimes 
meet  with  such  cases  among  certain  classes  of 
artisans :  paralysis  of  the  legs  as  a  result  of  using 
the  treadle  of  the  sewing-machine  ten  hours  a  day 
is  a  good  example,  and,  I  am  sorry  to  add,  not  a 
very  rare  one,  among  the  overtasked  women  who 
slave  at  such  labor. 

Now  let  us  see  what  happens  when  the  intellect- 


54  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

ual  organs  are  put  over-long  on  the  stretch,  and 
when  moral  causes,  such  as  heavy  responsibilities 
and  over-anxiety,  are  at  work. 

When  in  active  use,  the  thinking  organs  be- 
come full  of  blood,  and,  as  Dr.  Lombard  has 
shown,  rise  in  temperature,  while  the  feet  and 
hands  become  cold.  Nature  meant  that,  for 
their  work,  they  should  be,  in  the  first  place, 
supplied  with  food;  next,  that  they  should  have 
certain  intervals  of  rest  to  rid  themselves  of 
the  excess  of  blood  accumulated  during  their 
periods  of  activity,  and  this  is  to  be  done  by 
sleep,  and  also  by  bringing  into  play  the  phy- 
sical machinery  of  the  body,  such  as  the  muscles 
— that  is  to  say,  by  exercise  which  flushes  the 
parts  engaged  in  it  and  so  depletes  the  brain. 
She  meant,  also,  that  the  various  brain-organs 
should  aid  in  the  relief,  by  being  used  in  other 
directions  than  mere  thought ;  and  lastly,  she 
desired  that,  during  digestion,  all  the  surplus 
blood  of  the  body  should  go  to  the  stomach,  intes- 
tines, and  liver,  and  that  neither  blood  nor  nerve- 
power  should  be  then  misdirected  upon  the  brain  ; 
in  other  words,  she  did  not  mean  that  we  should 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


55 


try  to  carry  on,  with  equal  energy,  two  kinds 
of  important  functional  business  at  once. 

If,  then,  the  brain-user  wishes  to  be  healthy  he 
must  limit  his  hours  of  work  according  to  rules 
which  w^ill  come  of  experience,  and  which  no 
man  can  lay  down  for  him.  Above  all,  let  him 
eat  regularly  and  not  at  too  long  intervals.  I  well 
remember  the  amazement  of  a  distinguished  nat- 
uralist when  told  that  his  sleeplessness  and  irreg- 
ular pulse  were  due  to  his  fasting  from  nine  until 
six.  A  biscuit  and  a  glass  of  porter,  at  one 
o'clock,  effected  a  ready  and  pleasant  cure.  As 
to  exercise  in  the  fresh  air,  I  need  say  little,  ex- 
cept that  if  the  exercise  can  be  made  to  have  a 
distinct  object,  not  in  the  way  of  business,  so 
much  the  better.  Nor  should  I  need  to  add  that 
we  may  relieve  the  thinking  and  worrying  mechan- 
isms by  light  reading  and  other  amusements,  or 
enforce  the  lesson  that  no  hard  work  should  be 
attempted  during  digestion.  The  wise  doctor 
may  haply  smile  at  the  commonplace  of  such 
directions,  but  woe  be  to  the  man  who  neglects 
them ! 

When  an  overworked  and  worried  victim  has 


56  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

sufficiently  sinned  against  these  simple  laws,  if  he 
does  not  luckily  suffer  from  disturbances  of  heart 
or  stomach,  he  begins  to  have  certain  signs  of 
nervous  exhaustion. 

As  a  rule,  one  of  two  symptoms  appears  first, 
though  sometimes  both  come  together.  Work 
gets  to  be  a  little  less  facile ;  this  astonishes  the 
subject,  especially  if  he  has  been  under  high 
pressure  and  doing  his  tasks  with  that  ease  which 
comes  of  excitement.  With  this,  or  a  little 
later,  he  discovers  that  he  sleeps  badly,  and  that 
the  thoughts  of  the  day  infest  his  dreams,  or  so 
possess  him  as  to  make  slumber  difficult.  Un 
refreshed,  he  rises  and  plunges  anew  into  the  labor 
for  which  he  is  no  longer  competent.  Let  him 
stop  here;  he  has  had  his  warning.  Day  after 
day  the  work  grows  more  trying,  but  the  varied 
stimulants  to  exertion  come  into  play,  the  mind, 
aroused,  forgets  in  the  cares  of  the  day  the  weari- 
ness of  the  night  season ;  and  so,  with  lessening 
power  and  growing  burden,  he  pursues  his  pur- 
pose. At  last  come  certain  new  symptoms,  such 
as  giddiness,  dimness  of  sight,  neuralgia  of  the 
face  or  scalp,  with  entire  nights  of  insomnia  and 


OR  HINTS  FOR   THE   OVERWORKED. 


57 


growing  difficulty  in  the  use  of  the  mental  powers; 
so  that  to  attempt  a  calculation,  or  any  form  of 
intellectual  labor,  is  to  insure  a  sense  of  distress 
in  the  head,  or  such  absolute  pain  as  proves  how 
deeply  the  organs  concerned  have  suffered.  Even 
to  read  is  sometimes  almost  impossible;  and  there 
still  remains  a  delusion  arising  from  the  fact  that 
under  enough  of  moral  stimulus  the  man  may 
be  able,  for  a  few  hours,  to  plunge  into  business 
cares,  without  such  pain  as  completely  to  inca- 
pacitate him  for  immediate  activity.  Without 
fail,  however,  night  brings  the  punishment ;  and 
at  last  the  slightest  exertion  of  mind  becomes 
impossible.  In  the  worst  cases  the  scalp  itself 
grows  sore,  and  a  sudden  jar  hurts  the  brain,  or 
seems  to  do  so,  while  the  mere  act  of  stepping 
from  a  curbstone  produces  positive  pain. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  all  of  this  may  happen 
to  a  man,  and  he  may  still  struggle  onward,  igno- 
rant of  the  terrible  demands  he  is  making  upon 
an  exhausted  brain.  Usually,  by  this  time  he  has 
sought  advice,  and,  if  his  doctor  be  worthy  of  the 
title,  has  learned  that  while  there  are  certain  aids 
for  his  symptoms  in  the  shape  of  drugs,  there  is 


58  WEAR  AND    TEAR, 

only  one  real  remedy.  Happy  he  if  not  too  late 
in  discovering  that  complete  and  prolonged  ces- 
sation from  work  is  the  one  thing  needful.  Not 
a  week  of  holiday,  or  a  month,  but  probably  a 
year  or  more  of  utter  idleness  may  be  absolutely 
essential.  Only  this  will  answer  in  cases  so  ex- 
treme as  that  I  have  tried  to  depict,  and  even  this 
will  not  always  insure  a  return  to  a  state  of  active 
working  health. 

Somewhat  distracted  by  the  desire  to  be  brief, 
and  yet  to  tell  the  whole  story,  I  have  sought,  in 
what  I  fear  is  a  most  loose  and  disconnected  way, 
to  put  in  a  new  light  some  of  the  evils  which  are 
hurting  the  mothers  of  our  race,  and  those  which 
every  day's  experience  teaches  the  doctor  are 
gravely  affecting  the  working  capacity  of  number- 
less men.  I  trust  I  have  succeeded  in  satisfying 
my  readers  that  we  dwell  in  a  climate  where  work 
of  all  kinds  demands  greater  precautions  as  to 
health  than  is  the  case  abroad.  We  cannot  im- 
prove our  climate,  but  it  is  quite  possible  that 
we  have  not  sufficiently  learned  to  modify  the 
conditions  of  labor  in  accordance  with  those  of 
the  sky  under  which  we  live. 


OR  HINTS  FOR    THE   OVERWORKED. 


59 


No  student  of  the  nervous  maladies  of  American 
men  and  women  will  tliink  I  have  overdrawn  any 
part  of  the  foregoing  sketch.  It  would  have  been 
as  easy  to  tell  the  story  of  youth,  vigorous,  eager, 
making  haste  to  be  rich,  wrecked  and  made  un- 
productive and  dependent  for  years  or  forever ; 
of  middle  age,  unable  or  unwilling  to  pause  in  the 
career  of  dollar-getting,  crushed  to  earth  in  the 
hour  of  fruition,  or  made  powerless  to  labor 
longer  at  any  cost  for  those  who  were  dearest. 


t:^ 


f  J  >*  1 1- 


